Universal Traumas and Wounds
Within the male and female, there are several wounds that can be identified as having a universal character. I have elaborated on two of them;
#Absent Father
#Toxic Feminine Seduction
In addition, I consider wars, toxic masculine, to be a separate universal wound:
#Wars
The universal wound refers to a collective trauma that manifests itself when fundamental human needs are disrupted by traumatic events.
It is called “universal” because it:
Transcends personal experiences and affects entire populations
Persists and develops across generations, often through implicit transmission
Influences the view of humanity and the world It is experienced as an aspect of “normal” life rather than as a wound
Universal wounds arise when society is disrupted:
- Mass violence or prolonged wars (this violence can be physical, but also psychological and emotional)
- Colonialism, slavery, forced migration, or the erasure of cultures
- Industrial and technological revolutions that break down traditional communities and ways of life
- Economic systems that treat human labor as a commodity
- The disappearance of shared rituals, stories, and spiritual frameworks
I deliberately leave open whether this is a conscious process or a side effect. I believe it is more important for people to focus on healing and recovery than on assigning blame and the possible consequences of doing so.
The introduction to the book “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” by Robert Moore and D. Gillette paints a picture that is easy to understand.
The disappearance of rituals, through which people consciously transition from one phase of life to another, wars, absent fatherhood, unhealthy sexuality, and excessive individuality are some of the underlying causes that are responsible for this and that have influenced us all.
“The drug dealer, the ducking and diving political leader, the wife beater, the chronically “crabby” boss, the “hot shot” junior executive, the unfaithful husband, the company “yes man,” the indifferent graduate school adviser, the “holier than thou” minister, the gang member, the father who can never find the time to attend his daughter’s school programs, the coach who ridicules his star athletes, the therapist who unconsciously attacks his clients’ “shining” and seeks a kind of gray normalcy for them, the yuppie—all these men have something in common. They are all boys pretending to be men. They got that way honestly, because nobody showed them what a mature man is like. Their kind of “manhood” is a pretense to manhood that goes largely undetected as such by most of us. We are continually mistaking this man’s controlling, threatening, and hostile behaviors for strength. In reality, he is showing an underlying extreme vulnerability and weakness, the vulnerability of the wounded boy.”
― King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering Masculinity Through the Lens of Archetypal Psychology – A Journey into the Male Psyche and Its Four Essential Aspects